Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Baltimore Orioles were shutout by the Mets, 4-0, this afternoon down in Fort Lauderdale. Well, Danys Baez started the game for Baltimore and got hit -- real hard -- by the Mets team full of bench and minor league players. Seeing him closely from the stands, his stuff on the mound looked flat and it showed by how solid the hits were off of him.

He gave up all four runs on the afternoon -- on seven hits -- and gave up both two runs in the third and fifth innings. Matt Albers cleaned Baez's mess by throwing a inning of relief; thereafter, Chris Ray came in and tossed 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

Could this be the end of Baez's days as a starter? Probably not with the lack of starting options, he'll get every opportunity to start -- IMO -- unless he implodes and finds himself in the bullpen, or worse.